by Randi Darren
And now Carla just offers to sleep with me whenever she likes.
Shaking his head, Alex wasn’t sure what to think of it all.
Other than to follow Leah’s advice.
“Master?” Riley asked. Her voice was soft, gentle. And near.
A light touch brushed through his hair, making Alex lift his head up.
Riley stood there in front of him, dressed only in a see-through night dress that barely reached her thighs.
She’d pulled her hair back with small pins, her body bare of any other clothing, except for her collar.
“I thought… maybe… maybe you wouldn’t mind some company?” she asked, her fingers toying with the hem of the fabric.
Alex smiled at her and then leaned back, looking at her more carefully.
“I wouldn’t. What’d you have in mind?” he asked.
Riley smiled at him, then slowly got down to her knees. She unbuckled his belt leisurely and then unfastened his pants.
Unhesitatingly, she worked his pants down from his legs until she pulled them free entirely.
Setting them to one side, she then ran her hands up along his inner thighs.
“I don’t think you’ve asked me to do this yet, so I thought it might be fun?” Riley asked.
Without waiting for an answer, she dipped her head down and fished his half-erect self out from between his legs with her lips.
Audibly slurping, Riley moved her head forward and took his length into her mouth.
Turning her head from side to side, she sucked on him roughly. At the same time, her tongue writhed along the underside of his shaft.
Riley then looked up at him, and Alex couldn’t do anything but watch her.
She moaned softly, her fingers digging into his thighs as she began to slowly, methodically, bob her head up and down.
Easing back further onto his bed, Alex settled onto his elbows, staring down Riley’s nightie.
Smiling around his girth, Riley batted her eyes at him. Then she made a point of noisily sucking him back into her mouth.
Now fully erect, he actually felt his tip touch her throat before she eased him back up and out.
Doing nothing to impede or assist, Alex watched as Riley began to work her head quicker with each pass of her mouth. Her lips pressed tight to his flesh as she greedily devoured him over and over.
Pulling her head back, she released his tip with a soft pop as the suction broke. Reaching up with her right hand, she began to lightly stroke him, her tongue sneaking out to lap at his tip.
“Master, would you like to mount me and stain my insides? Or do you want to dirty my pretty mouth?” she asked innocently, her words clearly intentional.
Her lips curled around his head, sucking on him gently as her tongue speared into the tip over and over.
“Shit… ah… what… what do you want, One?” Alex asked, not able to think quite clearly.
Riley smiled beautifully, releasing him entirely.
“Fill me up, Master. Make me yours all over again,” Riley said. She gave him another lick, then let go of his shaft.
Not waiting, Riley lay down in his bed, adjusted her nightie, and spread her legs wide apart for him.
“Come, Master. Show me that I’m One,” Riley said, holding her hands out to him.
Alex grinned at her. Rolling over, he settled down atop her gently, his knees coming up under her thighs.
Not wanting to wait, he pushed himself into her, straight to the hilt.
Riley’s arms tightened up around his shoulders and pulled his head down to her throat.
Her lips latched to his ear and she moaned into it directly, her knees raising up as high as she could take them.
“Yes, Master. Give me everything,” she murmured.
Alex pressed his wrists to her hips and then started to pump himself in and out of her.
He had only need of her. Desire to take her completely.
He went from entering her to pummeling her backside with his crotch, as if trying to push all the way through her.
Riley started to call out softly against his ear with each thrust. Her collar tinkled and jingled as he tried to split her in half.
Unable to resist himself, Alex sank his teeth into her pale throat, just above her collar.
“Yes, Master. Mark me up as yours in every way,” Riley said, her teeth biting at his ear in return.
Before he could act on the impulse to turn her neck into a purple bite mark, he hit his climax and pressed hard into Riley. As if he wanted to bury her in the bed as he buried his seed in her.
Riley moaned deeply into his ear, her hands rubbing at his back encouragingly.
“Yes, Master. That’s it,” she said, kissing his jaw and neck lightly.
Alex kept thrusting into her as he climaxed. His hands curled into her hips and pushed her down as he thrust upward into her several more times.
Then Alex felt everything come to a stop as he finished. There wasn’t anything left in him, and he sank into Riley.
“That’s it, Master. Let One take care of you,” Riley said, her fingers stroking and petting his back.
Somehow his head ended up nestled on her shoulder, his face against her neck.
Riley’s fingers carded through his hair and smoothed it with his part.
“Rest,” she said, nuzzling his ear.
Alex fell asleep a minute later.
Chapter 34
Alex slowly came to. It took him a moment to remember where he was.
Turning his head to one side, he found Riley snuggled up close to him, but not sleeping on him.
She’d somehow wrangled him off herself into the bed properly, and curled up beside him.
Looking back to the interior ceiling of his canopied bed, Alex thought about what Leah had told him last night.
He needed to process deals, or she’d process him. It was that simple.
We can do that, though. It’s just a matter of not getting… involved… long term with those I make deals with.
If I can separate from them after the fact, and keep them at a distance, this can work.
Even Leah said to keep the Numbers close by for my sanity.
And Anna will support me; she understands. Perhaps even better than I do. She already started to maneuver things for me. She filled my dungeon with women who would satisfy what I need.
Riley let out a loud snore.
Then she farted in her sleep.
Alex blinked in surprise. After a moment, he started to laugh. He tried to stop. Desperately so, but he couldn’t contain it.
It was so normal.
Down to earth, in comparison to his thoughts of bartering and soul-dealing his way through a dungeon of women.
Leah was right. Keep his Numbers close.
Riley’s eyes slowly opened, and she smiled at him shyly.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, sounding quite sleepy.
“Nothing at all. I’m sorry for waking you. I order you to go back to bed, One. And sleep soundly. I’m going to go make a deal or two and get into the swing of things. I promise to wake you before I leave anywhere, alright?”
Riley nodded her head a little, then rubbed at her nose. “You sure, Master?”
“I’m sure. Sleep,” Alex said, rolling out of the bed.
“Mmhmm.” Riley closed her eyes and clearly fell right back asleep.
Smiling to himself, Alex flicked the covers over her more firmly and stepped out of the canopy.
Taking a moment to look around, he saw it was clearly still a few hours before dawn.
He could get some work done if he was quick.
Moving to the section of the pavilion Nannie and Carla slept in, he crept inside.
Easing up alongside Nannie’s bed, he reached in to pat her shoulder.
Only to have her flinch, and a hand shoot out to wrap around his throat and pull him in close to the bed.
He was suddenly face to face with her, her eyes wide and not awake at all.
> “Five, it’s me. It’s ok. I wanted to talk to you privately,” Alex whispered, trying to keep his voice as soft as possible.
Her fingers didn’t tighten around his neck, and he could actually see the point where her brain switched from groggy to awake.
Slowly, her hand released him as she blinked rapidly.
“What…?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“Come see me in the study. Be quiet and don’t wake anyone up,” Alex whispered. Standing up, he snuck back out of the room as quietly as he could.
Not waiting for Nannie, Alex took a seat on the couch. Rubbing his hands against his knees, trying not to think about what he was about to do.
Nannie entered his study. For the first time in his memory, she wasn’t in her armor, wasn’t holding a weapon, and didn’t have one belted at her waist.
She was dressed in a long tunic that reached her knees, and nothing else.
“What is it?” she asked, coming over and sitting down in a chair facing him. “Did something happen?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you about… well, you.”
Nannie’s face clouded up, her mouth tightening.
“That’s it, then?” she asked. “All tired of pretending now?”
“Pretending?” Alex asked. He didn’t quite understand what she meant.
“Pretending. Pretending that you’re comfortable around me. That you want me here. That you don’t look at me and wonder if I’ll kill you in the night,” Nannie said, her voice slowly rising.
“Uh… Five?” Alex said, interrupting her when she took a deep breath.
Nannie paused, her mouth open, her body tense. Her hands were at her sides, tightly clenched.
She was also giving him a rather clear view of her rather firm and muscular thighs.
“What?” she asked, her voice tight.
“First off, you have some impressive legs,” Alex said, pointing at the indicated body parts.
Nannie’s knees slammed together and she pulled down on her tunic.
“Second, wow, you fill out that tunic way more than I thought you would. Do you bind your chest or something? You’re a bit bigger than Two, aren’t you? Probably a lot closer to Three than I realized.”
Nannie’s face was bright red now. Either in rage or embarrassment, Alex couldn’t tell.
Her growl was audible.
“Third, I need to arrange a deal with you. To permanently tie you to me. I’ll have you swear to all the same things the others have. One night in my bed a week, one night on your knees a week, to call me Master, to wear a collar—a nice one, with your name tag on it. Already have it ready for you; it’s quite lovely.
“And your name is Five. To respond to and be called, Five.
“You’ll be granted everything they’re entitled to. You’ll all be equal to each other,” Alex said, holding his hands apart. “I’ll need you to swear all that on your life and your soul, on your existing oath. If not, I’ll have to treat you as if you weren’t a Number.”
Nannie looked a bit like a landed fish. Her mouth opening and closing several times.
“You… want me to be the same as the others,” she said finally.
“That’s right. No different than One, Two, or Three.”
“You want me in your bed. Would force me into your bed. Force me to… to service you,” Nannie said.
“Indeed. You can of course refuse. As the deal always goes.
“Well, what’ll it be, Five? I’ll have your collar, uniform, and tag ready today if you agree. Then you’ll be truly bound to me till the day you die.”
Nannie kept one hand pressed to her chest, her other hand still holding her tunic.
She looked angry. Angry and confused.
Leah had warned him she was close to simply agreeing because she wanted it.
He wasn’t expecting to get much from her accepting the deal; this was just to get everyone on the same playing field.
“I accept,” Nannie said after a long pause, “Master.”
***
“What’s it look like, Max?” Alex asked, unable to see much of the keep through the village in front of them.
“Much the same,” Max said with a loud sigh. “They’re not budging from their siege. No matter how much we pepper them with arrows and javelins. Hell, we’ve been throwing rocks since we ran out of everything else.
“Ballistas don’t have much ammunition left, either. They just refuse to engage us.”
Alex sighed and ran a hand across his face.
“Dan and Drew have been making charges against their flanks. They’re just piling up bodies now so we can’t run them down,” Max said, his tone clear with exasperation. “And it isn’t as if they’ll survive the siege either; they’re running low on food.”
“They are?” Alex asked.
“Drew smashed a support column that was trying to get through. Food. All food.”
Max threw an arm back towards their own support cache, far to the rear and guarded. “We just… piled it up with our stuff. He’ll end up capturing the keep, only to run out of food.
“They’ll run us down until they drain the resources or they get reinforcements.”
Alex couldn’t help but agree with that assessment. In either situation, the outcome wasn’t going to be good.
And to top all that off, if I’m stuck here, I won’t be making deals. If I don’t make deals and get Leah power, I might as well just open up my own throat.
Damn me for a fool. She was right. Without Mary, I would have been strapped for power to fill the crystal, let alone the pillar.
“Sire, enemy troops have moved into the village,” a soldier reported, coming up to them at a run.
“The village?” Max asked.
“Yes sir, it looks like they’re foraging.”
Alex shook his head once, then threw his hands up.
“Send in some men-at-arms. Discourage the enemy and kill as many as you can. In fact, have some light foot loop around to cut off their retreat. Let’s take out as many as we can,” Alex said.
“Sire,” Max said, saluted, then moved away.
Grumbling, Alex ran a hand through his hair.
“Problem, Master?” Nannie asked, looming over his shoulder.
“Nothing you don’t already know, Five. Just our dear friend over there being stubborn and stupid. He’s going to go down as hard as possible and take everything he can with him.
“If he manages to somehow get reinforcements, we’ll be forced to withdraw until I can buy more troops.”
Then Alex shook his head.
“No, I’ll be honest with myself. If that happened, we’d retreat and give up on it for now. The cost would be too much to support. This is already starting to drain our finances, and it will be a while before the economy of Ridge stabilizes.”
“Sounds like we should just run in and smash them now, then. Up against the wall,” Nannie said.
Alex nodded at that, then froze.
It wasn’t a bad answer. It was a horrible tactic, and it’d get a lot of people killed, but realistically, it was a valid answer. One that could work.
“Good thought, Five. Very good thought,” Alex murmured.
Acting on the possibility, he moved over to Dave, who was speaking with Dan.
“Dave,” Alex said, getting the other man’s attention.
“Sire?”
“I need you to put a plan together on how we can assault them against that wall. Maybe set their position on fire and then charge in after it dies down,” Alex said. “I don’t have any solid ideas, but I need to be able to crack their defense if we have to. We can’t let them take the keep, or we’ll be trapped here for far too long. If we want to win without the risk of him getting reinforced, this’d be it.”
Dave frowned at him, but slowly nodded his head. “Alright, I’ll get to work on it. But from what I can see, we’ll have to commit to that probably by tomorrow. They assembled a massive number of ladders. Max is trying to c
onfirm numbers, but… my gut tells me they’ll hit the walls tomorrow.
“Might be our best chance to attack as they’re trying to scale them.”
Alex grunted at the news.
“Right. Ok. Sounds like a plan. Put it together and get it ready. Thank you, Dave,” Alex said, turning and leaving the man to work his plan.
“Sire?” Dan said, catching up with him.
“Mm?”
“I have a problem, and I think you’ll need to intervene.”
“What is it?”
“We ended up clearing some of the nearby buildings. Mostly for storage and caches.”
“Uh huh.”
“One of them was the prison. We’ve got about seven prisoners in there. They were all scheduled for execution, but the sheriff and the bailiff were both killed by the enemy when they passed through.
“They left everyone in their cells, though,” Dan said.
“Huh. Alright. And you need me to weigh out their justice?”
“Yes, sire. At least to enforce their execution and have it carried out.”
Alex rubbed at his neck, feeling the scruff growing in.
Need to shave. Starting to get stubbly.
Wait. They’re already destined to die, right? We can use this. I think.
“Take me to them and clear the prison of everyone else. I’ll take my Numbers, and that’s it,” Alex said, making a decision.
Dan nodded his head and then gestured down a road off to the side.
“This way then, sire,” he said.
Alex glanced over his shoulder. Carla and Nannie were there. Valeria and Riley weren’t.
Probably working on something else. I’ll be fine with these two.
Firming up on his choice, Alex fell in behind Dan and walked at his pace.
“Anything else I need to know about them?”
“Nothing else to tell, really. They were all sentenced just before everything happened. The paperwork was all right there on the desk. They were all to be hanged in a week and thrown in a ditch.”
“Lovely. And what’d they do to deserve such a fate?”
“Rape and murder for most of them. Or so the charges listed on the papers claim. Nothing lost if they get hanged,” Dan said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Grinning, Alex turned and looked back at Nannie, who was staring at him.